We also are on the tightest budget we've ever, EVER had. Which made things stickier.

NO room to store a plethora of new toys + VERY little money to spend on gifts = the emotional equivalent of a sticky paper rat trap.

First of all, I had to be careful what I told friends and family they could get for the kids. There was one thing my oldest daughter really wanted--this helium filled robot shark baloon thing--but my Mom looked it up and it was HUGE. There was no way that was going to work.

Second of all, when you've got a tight budget, but your kids ask for stuff from Santa, it's hard not to try to make ONE of those things work.

Here's where I got lucky.

Well, I don't think luck has anything to do with it. It's almost completely due to a decision we made about five years ago that I'm so very happy with to this day.

Five years ago we shut off cable. That's right. No TV shows, no news, no HBO or National Geographic or PBS. If it wasn't on video, we didn't get to see it.

Recently that has improved, with the advent of Hulu and Netflix and the ability to watch it through our XBOX 360. Redbox movies have been awesome as well. We spend a total of $15 a month on watching stuff on our television. FIFTEEN DOLLARS.

How did this help with Christmas?

Two words: NO COMMERCIALS.

Since my children watch Netflix exclusively, they avoid the constant bombarding media blitz and the resulting capitalistic consumer carnage.

In short, they have no idea what to ask for. They have no idea what new toys are out, what the lastest fashions are or anything. Other than watching regular tv at my parent's house on occassion and looking through catalogues there as well they aren't exposed to very much advertising at all. Other than the radio, and what they see on billboards and of course what they see on shelves in stores (we don't frequent places like Target anyway) they just don't have to deal with it.

What did they ask for this year? Before looking at the catalogues at my parent's house, this is what they said:

My son wanted Halo 4 (not happening since he's grounded from video games for an indefinite amount of time) and the second Warrior's book series set.

My oldest daughter wanted a blanket with fish on it, a book about fish and some fish toys.

Of course, once they got to the catalogues they circled practically every single item, especially my daughters! But my parents are wise and chose great gifts that they knew would be played with for a long time and my kids understood that they wouldn't get everything they asked for. We made a point of discussing that when people get gifts they want the recipeient to be surprised, so we make lists in order to pick one thing out of many to make it a fun mystery! They liked this idea.

In the end we were able to stay UNDER budget. Of course, at home the kids only got two total gifts, one from us and one from Santa, plus stocking items. However, later in the morning family members added well chosen gifts to my children's "meager" haul, as well as money toward purchasing other items as well.

Even so, they didn't bring tons and tons of new 'stuff' home, but carefully and wisely chosen toys, books and clothes that they are going to cherish because nothing is going to get lost in the shuffle. They know who each gift is from and how carefully it was chosen.

I absolutely love it.

And I absolutely love not having cable!

How was your Christmas? Are your children blessed with lots of gifts, or just a few? How do you work to instill gratefulness no matter how many gifts are recieved?

05/02/2012

1. Go out to your car to take the kids to school.2. Realize your car battery is probably dead because the fob won't work to unlock it.3. Try to start the car.4. Leave the keys in the car, close the door, but not until you push the lock button. (You think you have the keys in your hand because you're holding something that isn't keys)5. Yell at your 10 year old to close the front door before the dog gets out.6. Realize as the door shuts that the handle is probably still locked.7. Confirm the handle is locked.8. Go to the neighbor's and ask for help.9. Watch in slight horror as your neighbor easily uses his YMCA card to break into your house. (thanks, Dave!)10. Call AAA.11. Get the car unlocked, get car jumped, thank tow truck dude #1, take kids to school.12. Get to school, turn van off, run in to check kids in and take a refill of meds to the nurse for the above mentioned 10 year old.13. Get youngest daughter, who is wearing footie pajamas and pull on boots, buckled into car. Kiss her face.14. Try to start car. 15. Hang head and try not to cry.16. Call AAA again, pop hood, go into school and tell them why you're sitting in their no parking zone with your hood open.17. Watch as tow truck dude #2 hooks up cables. Take a photo. Post to instagram, facebook and twitter.18. Try to start car 14,142 times. Fail 14,142 times. 19. Try to start car one, last time. Kill the battery in the tow truck in the process.20. Wait as tow truck dude #2 calls tow truck dude #3. 21. Watch tow truck dude #3 hook up cables to tow truck #3. Start car. Clap hands in delight, then feel embarrassed for responding like a 4 year old who just got a birthday present.22. Thank tow truck dudes #2 and #3. Back up van carefully to leave parking lot.23. Knock over orange parking cone.24. Nearly hit tow bar thingy on back of tow truck #2. Get winked at by tow truck dude #3.25. Drive around Everett for half an hour so battery can charge up. Get a coffee at Starbucks and do not feel guilty. You freaking deserve it.

01/04/2012

I spent such a long time trying to be someone else. I wanted to be an actual replica of a person who I admired (and, admittedly, idolized as the correct version of mother/wife/friend) and had been told was someone I should emulate.

I am realizing now, over the last two years of healing from the scars of having my metaphorical skin stripped away in place of what others thought was better, that I am enough.

Well, I'm not really enough, but I have been given the power to apply the things I have learned, and will continue to learn, as I see fit for me and my family.

This is true freedom for me.

I have no desire at this moment (my youngest is leaning on me, waiting to read a book together) to write a list of things...things I want to do, things I have done, things I need to do. There are just so many things, and so little of them really, truly matter.

Don't get me wrong, I love lists (name that movie!) it's just that I tend to feel so accomplished once things are out of my brain and onto paper and then nothing much happens after that. Lists full of things that are not attainable right now in my current season of life just serve to make me feel discontented and terrible about who I am in this moment.

And right now, in this moment, I am under the weather, tired and not looking forward to having to leave the comfort of my nest to venture down the street to work.

I'll share the one New Years resolution that I've actually taken to heart (besides my promise to get the color finished on my new tattoo before my anniversary in March!) and made my own.

I resolve to give myself permission to be in the moment. Because when you get right down to it, today, right now, this moment is all any of us get.

11/13/2011

My son is suspiciously abscent from these photos...he's been in his room all afternoon building things with legos and reading Calvin and Hobbes in quiet escape from his sisters. :)

Today was all about NO electronics, as I've been sick since Thursday and Brad's been at a conference and the kids have watched a lot of Netflix while I recovered.

Everyone continued work on the ginormous train track they started last night, until Loren got a little uppity with the girls and put himself in time out in his room.

Of course there was a lot of art going on, and a shopping trip to the store across the street. I still haven't been brave enough to try walking there with all the kids...I generally don't know what exactly I need until I get there. A one bag trip could easily turn into an 'impossible to carry home' conundrum I don't realize has happened until I wheel the cart out the the parking lot and remember my van is a 1/4 mile away in my driveway.

The salmon and potatoes are super easy and a family favorite. Just coat with olive oil or, if you're out like I was today, butter on the salmon and canola oil on the potatoes, which were yukon golds. I put the salmon on parchment paper, generously sprinkled with French Garden Salad Dressing Mix & Rub and put it in a cold oven which I then turn to 400 degrees. Salmon on the bottom, potatoes in the middle for 25 minutes, then I swap them until I feel like they're done. The fish is always done first, of course, but covered with a little foil it keeps very well for the few minutes it takes for the potatoes to catch up. Simple & easy (if badly photographed).

Why didn't I remember I needed olive oil while at the store? The same reason I'd forget I walked there. My brain and I are rather in-the-moment forgetful.

I spent some time on the computer at my freshly cleaned desk while the kiddos played.

It's been a lovely Sunday afternoon, indeed.

(Kitchen wetbag made by Pepperjack Home, more on this (and a giveaway!) Tuesday.)

08/02/2011

July is the month in our house where the birthday roller coaster crests its first tall hill and begins the crazy wild ride that is non-stop until after Thanksgiving. So far my youngest has turned four, my oldest has hit double digits at ten, my brother has hit the down hill slide toward forty (36) and I have turned thirty...something. My father is next, then my husband, my middle child, my mother and my mother in law. I know I'm missing someone. It's what I do. One day I'll have an iPhone that will sync with my iCalendar and keep me iStraight.

In the interest of not re-inventing the wheel, here are some links I like for simplifying the birthday party process and one of my favorite links for gift buying that gives back.

06/15/2011

It has been wonderful. I knew that the moment I started thinking "This would make a great post!" that it would be time to come back.

Well, here I am. And I can't really remember what I thought was such a great thing to share with you all.

It could be that our lives are being saturated with change at the moment.

First of all, we're moving after living in the same place for almost five years (you can read about why here). That in and of itself has been nerve wracking, disappointing and exciting all at once. If you've ever moved five people's worth of stuff, three of those people being kids who are scared and nervous and don't understand how their beds could possibly fit through the front door then you know what I mean. We had a place but backed out because the basement walls were squishy with moisture and Brad was not comfortable with all the exposed wires and water down there. Which was sort of a side note because the elderly landlord FORGOT he gave the place to us and had another family moved in before we could even tell him we didn't want the place anymore. So yeah, that kind of worked out.

Second, my work situation is being altered greatly. The lady I take care of is moving in with her daughter in a new house about 85 miles south of us. Not exactly good as a regular commute. I'm SO happy for her, though, this is a much better set-up and she'll never be alone at night. I recently gained a really unique opportunity working with an award winning author, which I am extremely stoked about. It all came about essentially through a rogue email and I cannot believe how blessed I am for this chance to apply work I love doing to help someone I greatly respect and get paid for it! This work won't be the end all, though, until I can show how effective I can be and then build a client base of other authors. So, I'm still doing my photography (another job I absolutely love doing), I will be working for Millie for a while longer and I will also be working for Starbucks part time as a barista.

Lest you think my musician husband is just sitting on his butt playing his guitar Andy Dwyer style, he's finished a new album, is playing The Bite of Seattle next month and is still the Technical Director at our church.

Um...we're a little bit busy.

School is out on Friday, my daughter 'graduates' kindergarten tomorrow and it still feels like early spring in Seattle, which I am NOT complaining about. (Unlike what seems to be 90% of Seattle area people I do not miss nor wish for hot weather.)

Let's see...what else? Our older boxer has cancer, our younger boxer is adorable and we find out today if we got the latest house we applied for. We just got family pictures taken with Kaylee Eylander and I can't wait to see them. I have my own computer now (no sharing with Brad and getting in trouble for messing up his OCD desk organization) and am currently getting the people's eyebrow because said husband is slaving away packing while I'm dinking away on the interwebs.

Alright, friends! There is your five second update and here is a promise: I will be posting regularly again starting now!

03/15/2011

We're having wild weather where I live and I just lied to my children.

They were scared when the lightening flashed and the thunder rolled over our house. So they asked with tremulous voices if I liked storms and I lied and said, yes, they're quite fun when you're inside because the house keeps you safe.

03/09/2011

My life is a constant marathon of serving other people. My day job is taking care of an elderly lady in her home. My mornings and evenings and often nights are spent helping care for my three children and doing my darnedest to support my husband's music career. Both Brad and I try to be available to support others as well, be it through attending shows, lending an ear, making a meal or providing a couch to crash on. This is not some special feat, or some big mission we're on to change the world. It's just who we are. We love people and try to do so as practically as possible.

Sometimes my job is hard. Sometimes loving on my kids is hard. Sometimes being married to a musician is really hard. Loving others outside of my inner circle...that's hard sometimes, too. More often than not, though, it's the mundane, repetitive things that are the hardest for me. Giving someone money when they need it? Easy. Living life with others, getting let down, those things are the hardest. It's why marriage is so difficult. Being in for the long-haul is where the rubber meets the road and I am often surprised at how little tread I've got on my tires. I do think so highly of myself sometimes.

Love is hard and love attracts all kinds. Once you open up yourself to this idea that you're going to live in love--and I mean real love--what you've done is open a jar of honey that many will be drawn to. What I've learned is this: If you're going to love for real be ready to deal with flies and angry bears.

The crux of living a life in love is that you offer up yourself to be exposed to the vicious and the gentle, the bitter and the kind--sometimes in the same person. If you hide yourself from the wolves you hide yourself from the doves. If we learn to live under the assumption that the only real collateral damage of truly loving others will be our own pride we can be much more bold in our pursuit of others beyond our own short sighted agenda. For being truly loving is, in itself, it's own armor.

I am no Mother Theresa. I all too often want something in return, I want results, I want to see the fruit of my labor. Working with Millie has helped me to see that. Millie has dementia and I cannot make it better. All I can do is go moment by moment and make each of those minuscule amounts of time the best they can be for her.

02/25/2011

Hello all! While it may seem to the untrained eye that I have simply become a slacker in the blogging department, I have actually been working hard on redesigning and reorganizing my website. I'm talking to designers and doing research to try to make the most of my online presence. One of the things involved in this is taking a good hard look at what the whole point of my blog really is.

When I think about why I'm doing this a few things come to mind.

The first is noble: I want to help people. I really, really want the stuff I have gone through or am going through to be a boon to others who may be going through similar things. I'd like to share ideas or things that others might benefit from. I also, on my new site, want to marry my blog with my photography and writing instead of having two separate (three if you count Ah! The Blog!) areas to tend to.

The second reason is not noble as much as it is truthful: I desire community. That's a hard one to admit because what it really boils down to is wanting to matter. My internal desire to have other people buy into me and my writing, care about what I have to say and even respond to it. This has been the hardest thing for me because I don't get many comments on my posts. I have blogger friends who get tons of comments with every post, ten, twenty or more. I rarely get one. When my friend Patrick asked me the other night after a show how the blog was going, I didn't know what to say. I had been in a funk about it all week because I was asking myself what the point was. I'm getting over a thousand page views every month but little to no interaction. I'm such a social, extroverted person and this lack of dialogue is disheartening. Poor Patrick had to listen to me whine about being unsure of myself but that is what it's all about--needing the approval of others. I have the same struggle with my budding photography "career". What's the point of taking photos if no one is looking at them?

I'm working on this, though. It's been made very clear to me via a few random comments from friends and strangers alike that my posts and photography and other writing do matter and are noticed even if no one says so in the virutal world. I need to remember that even if all this work just serves as a record of my life to look back on when I'm sixty-two then it is well worth the effort. Especially with a memory as bad as mine.

A third thing is almost just as embarassing to admit: I'd like to make money via my blog. Even if it's just the place where someone sees my photography and wants to hire me to take photos of them or write a bio for their band or an article for their website. I'd like to try ads again, but this time for people I know and businesses I patronize myself. I have NO idea how this works but I'm willing to figure it out. It may seem like selling out and if it is, that's okay. I have three kids to help take care of and if advertising on my site is selling my soul, well, if it means a little more security or being able to give generously to the people I love or causes I support the so be it. My dream is to live a life that is simpler and more abundant in things that matter the most in this short little life I've been given.

So this is where I am at. The Musician's Wife is a work in progress. Both the site and the person behind it. I really appreciate the support of all my readers, friends old and new and my family as well. I hope you will stick with me as I navigate creating a new site that is a better representation of the people my husband, kids and I have become since starting this blog in 2009.